TORONTO, Ont. – Canadians buyers accounted for 2,607 Class 8 truck sales in August, bringing year-to-date totals up to 22,295 units. The numbers essentially match the 22,301 Class 8 trucks sold by August 2018.

The latest figures from Wards Auto show Freightliner securing 30.4% of the year-to-date market share on this side of the border, slightly lower than the 36.5% it has secured in the U.S.

While equipment orders at the factory level have declined sharply in recent months, the forecasters at FTR are not alarmed. Four of North America’s top seven production years have occurred within the past six years, said vice-president of commercial vehicles Don Ake, during the company’s recent annual conference. The annual record of 371,000 trucks was recorded in 2006, as buyers looked to secure equipment prior to the rollout of EPA07 emissions standards.

“If you looked at it in a vacuum, you’d think things are horrible,” Ake said of a recent drop in monthly orders. But if the monthly 2018 and 2019 orders were averaged out, they would still be higher than the seven-year average.

“The market is trying to get back to normal,” he said, adding that there has been no corresponding spike in cancellations. “[Customers] are taking most of these trucks, which is a very good sign for the market. It’s a normalization of the market, not a crash.”

Canadian buyers also accounted for 1,130 Class 7 sales in August, and 5,706 units on the year so far – lower than the 4,371 sales recorded by August 2018, Wards Auto reports. While International accounts for 39.3% of the 2019 year-to-date total in Canada, Freightliner is the top brand in the U.S. at a market share of 42.4%.

In contrast, Freightliner accounted for 37% of the 1,110 year-to-date Class 6 sales in Canada, with the market’s overall total up marginally from the 1,024 sales recorded during the same period in 2018. Ford and International are essentially tied for their shares of 53,940 sales in the U.S., at a respective 29.5%, 28.6%, and 25.6%.

Ford leads the way in Class 5 sales on both sides of the border, with 51% of the 5,626 units sold in Canada during the first eight months of the year, and 63.3% of the 55,349 in the U.S. Retail buyers on this side of the border accounted for 5,450 units.